This is an emergency. There are children growing up in hotels while empty homes rot.

Our young people are on planes to Australia while three-bedroom homes are only occupied by rodents and rubbish.

There is nobody in this state now who hasn’t been impacted by the housing crisis - it has come to their door or the door of their loved one.

Housing is the single biggest social issue of our times, and it is only getting worse under this Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael-Lowry government.

I understand that people are very angry. I hear it and I feel it.

I am angry when a mother comes to me asking where her children will go to school when they live in a hotel room.

I am angry when a couple tell me they are stuck living in the box room of their parents’ home unable to start an independent life of their own.

I am angry when a pensioner calls me because they cannot afford to pay their rent after working all their life.

I am angry when my daughter’s friends tell me their only future is abroad.

People are sick to their back teeth of tea and sympathy from a government that is unwilling and incapable of solving housing.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael repeatedly tell us that housing can’t be fixed overnight. Who are they trying........

© Evening Echo